I have one tried-and-true pizza dough recipe that has yet to be displaced, despite many attempts at new dough preparations. Could I be narrowing in on an alteration that could take this recipe standard to the next level? Cautiously, yes.

The recipe innovation? Kneading the dough in the food processor instead of by hand, a tip we picked up listening to Christopher Kimball's Milk Street podcast. Kimball made a passing reference to using a food processor for pizza dough, sparking our minds that this could be the accelerant to extra delicious dough.

Fueled by this tip, I found a Williams Sonoma food processor dough recipe online. I added 3 teaspoons of the King Arthur Flour pizza dough flavor to this fairly standard recipe. With a regular metal food processor attachment - not a special dough attachment - I developed very smooth and glossy dough in just under a minute of processing. I then halved the dough into two balls, covered them in olive oil, and put them in the fridge for a 24 hour cold rise. The dough balls rose significantly in the fridge, perhaps even more than doubling?
When I prepared the pizzas themselves, I found the dough less easy to roll than my standard dough, even at room temperature. I used my fists to drape the dough over as I found gravity more helpful than anything else I was trying.
I then did my standard pre-baking of the dough on a heated pizza stone before adding the toppings to place ~4 inches away from the broiler. The result was a chewier dough than we are used to, but not one that was unpleasant. The crust held up to the toppings, and had a nice yeasted flavor.

I think my next step is to try my standard pizza dough recipe (with King Arthur pizza flour) using the food processor and going from there. Excited to see what this innovation, that is so much easier on my arms, results in!